Chico native and Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers gave $1 million last week to launch a new fund that others could add to, including State Farm insurance.

The Oakland Raiders gave $200,000 cash, plus $50,000 in gift cards, and JP Morgan Chase wrote a check for $725,000.

In California, Walmart Foundation committed to cash and product donations of $500,000, along with $10,000 for local wildfire services, and an additional $100,000 to help Red Cross shelters.

“All the other disasters have been training us for this one,” said Alexa Benson-Valavanis, executive director of North Valley Community Foundation, which has gotten corporate donations from the Raiders, the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers and United Airlines. Rodgers’ contribution was a high point.

As of last week, North Valley Community Foundation could count $5 million for the primary relief fund, with that amount going up steadily, and smaller donor-directed funds established too.

Likewise, a Camp Fire relief fund was set up by Chico-based Golden Valley Bank, which counts among its founders Sierra Nevada’s Ken Grossman. The fire fund is through the bank’s nonprofit foundation.

Additionally Golden Valley has been setting up smaller funds for affected individuals or businesses too.

“There have been thousands and thousands of individual donations,” according to Golden Valley President and CEO Mark Francis, who noted the bank’s foundation donated $50,000 to establish the Camp Fire fund and another $50,000 earlier in the year toward the Carr Fire fund for the Redding area. The bank has had a loan production office in Redding for years, but opened a full branch this year.

Before Thanksgiving, Francis noted more than $1.3 million had been donated to Camp Fire relief.

Tri Counties Bank, which had a branch in Paradise that has closed, also started a Camp Fire fund, giving $25,000 to help establish it through a Go Fund Me account.

Branches of the Chico-based Tri Counties have been taking donations from customers and walk-ins, along with online donations.

As of Monday, the fund had raised $448,480 of the $500,000 goal, according to the website

Red Cross and the Salvation Army also do fundraising, but use what they raise.

Distribution

Giving to a tax-favorable nonprofit has helped foundations and nonprofits to encourage more giving, but dispersing the funds is a careful process.

The North Valley Community Foundation has a standing committee that takes applications and looks over requests. Recipients have included the traditional agencies, along with smaller micro-focuses.

“They are all Camp Fire specific,” Benson-Valavanis noted.

On Monday, the community foundation announced that $804,500 had been distributed in the last two weeks to roughly 40 local groups, ranging from $50,000 to the Oroville Hope Center to $4,000 to the Torres Shelter.

“One of the beautiful things about the community foundation is that it is able to do things beyond the master relief fund,” Benson-Valavanis said.

She mentioned donations to the Butte County Office of Education, and Cal Water Workers’ Relief Fund, among others, part of a long list available on the NVCF website.

The Golden Valley Bank foundation’s dispersals are directed by a foundation board that consists of three bank directors, an employee and an outside representative. The donations all stay local, according to the website www.goldenvalley.bank/community-foundation.aspx.

“We have many fundraising partners for our Camp Fire relief funds and they are very instrumental in recommending where funding is needed, and we listen closely to them,” Francis noted in an email.

Francis said the bank pays for the foundation’s costs in administering the grants.

“We have helped a lot of individuals who were renters with no insurance, but needed to find a place and needed first, last and deposit,” Francis said.

Contributions can be made at the Chico branch at 190 Cohasset Road, Chico, 95926 or mailed to the same address.

Tri Counties explained on its website that it distributes through local nonprofit emergency relief agencies that directly serve fire victims, specifying United Way of Northern California, Salvation Army and Northern Valley Catholic Social Services.

Direct aid organizations

Parent entities play a role in helping fund aid to the local Salvation Army and American Red Cross.

For the Chico Salvation Army, a total of $2.2 million has come from “various donation streams” since Nov. 8, all designated for Camp Fire relief efforts, according to Corps Officer Arwyn Rodriguera.

“Some of the funding has been directed toward short-term assistance, like immediate needs,” she noted. More than 2,800 individuals have sought financial assistance in the form of gift cards, and more than 8,000 individuals have visited the army’s distribution center on Marauder Avenue.

Money also will be allocated toward long-term assistance, whether help with temporary housing or vouchers for other housing essentials such as furniture, she said. An early-recovery program is in the works in which case management will assist with inquiries from evacuees.

“Local restaurants and donors have also contributed to our ability to serve three meals a day at eight of the shelters,” Rodriguera added.

Amanda Ree of the American Red Cross in Chico noted that financial donations can be made online, but can only be made to California wildfires in general, not specifically to Camp Fire relief.

“We don’t have the organizational nimbleness to do that,” she said Monday.

The Red Cross has been in charge of the evacuation centers in Butte and Glenn counties, spending money on sheltering, feeding, medical needs and mental or spiritual care, she said. Later, the nonprofit will be helping with “emerging” needs like rental assistance and transportation.

Right now, the evacuation centers are being consolidated into the Butte County Fairgrounds in Gridley and the Glenn County Fairgrounds in Orland, which the Red Cross will continue to support, she said.

The organization will also be dealing with “pop-up” shelters, the ones that haven’t been under the Red Cross but have been sheltering or feeding, she noted.

In grants announced Monday, the North Valley Community Foundation directed $15,000 to the Red Cross for cash dispersal to individuals.